A Bum Rap Against The Scientologists

July 2, 1985|By James J. Kilpatrick, Universal Press Syndicate

WASHINGTON — A Multnomah County jury in Oregon on May 17 delivered itself of what can best be described as a travesty of justice. The jury returned a verdict of $39 million in punitive damages against the Church of Scientology. This was a bum rap. The judgment surely will be appealed and eventually it will be set aside. For the record: I am not a Scientologist. To the best of my knowledge I never have even met a Scientologist. I am an old-fashioned, whiskey-drinking, prayer-book Episcopalian, but I have spent 40-odd years covering courts and worrying about the Constitution, and I know prejudice and the First Amendment when I find them doing battle in court. This judgment was the product of pure prejudice, and it trampled upon the Constitution.

The case involved a young woman named Julie Christofferson. In the summer of 1975, a few weeks before her 18th birthday, with her mother's written permission, she became a member of the Church of Scientology in Portland. As the Oregon Court of Appeals later would comment, no one forced her into this decision. During her time in the church she visited with relatives in the Portland area; she twice returned to her home in Montana for parental visits. ''She became involved and maintained her involvement because she desired to do so.''

As part of her indoctrination, Christofferson took a basic course in the Scientologists' doctrine of communication. ''She returned day after day to participate in the course, although she had daily contact with non- Scientologists in her job and at her apartment with her non-Scientologist roommate.'' The drills that accompanied the course ''were not in themselves outrageous.''

Here the stories diverge. The church says that in April 1976, at her mother's instigation, the young woman was kidnapped by a fanatical band of ''deprogrammers'' who forcibly detained her ''until she recanted her religious beliefs.'' Maybe yes, maybe no. In any event, Christofferson renounced the church, took sides with the deprogrammers, and in 1977 filed suit against the Scientologists.

She sought damages on two grounds -- that the church instructors intentionally had inflicted emotional distress by ''outrageous conduct''; that the course was a fraud. She had been promised, for example, that her eyesight and her IQ would improve, and nothing of the sort had resulted. At the first trial in 1980, a jury awarded her $2 million.

The church appealed. In May 1981 the Oregon Court of Appeals found that there was not sufficient evidence to support a verdict for outrageous conduct. The court ordered a new trial on the sole issue of civil fraud: Were the services offered the young woman ''on a wholly non-religious basis''? Was the intention ''solely to obtain money from plaintiff''?

After a prolonged delay, the suit came on for retrial this spring. The case got out of hand. Instead of concentrating on Christofferson's specific allegations of fraud, the trial turned into a trial of Scientology itself. The verdict: An award of $3,203.20 in general damages against each of three defendants and $39 million in punitive damages against the church and its principal figure, L. Ron Hubbard.

The judgment is preposterous. In fact and in law, the Church of Scientology is a religion. The courts repeatedly have held so.

As the Court of Appeals observed four years ago, whatever this woman experienced, she experienced it as a member of the church. She could not have taken the course otherwise. Her participation was voluntary, and if she paid for the course, well, all churches are financed by their members. All churches promise something -- redemption, salvation or peace of mind.